


Everything Is Not Broken

by Rheanna



Category: FreakAngels
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-12
Updated: 2011-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-27 06:34:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rheanna/pseuds/Rheanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a lot easier to end the world than it is to rebuild it.  But you have to start somewhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything Is Not Broken

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mrasaki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrasaki/gifts).



Whenever they stop, Kirk is always their lookout. He doesn't exactly volunteer for the job; he just does it, because he's best at it. He's starting to realize that a lot of things work like that for them: every time they need to do something, they all know which of them is the best one to do it, and they rarely argue about who does what.

They argue about everything else. Just not that.

They're arguing now. Kirk can hear them. Their voices are muffled by the closed door behind him, but it's their thoughts which are making it really hard for him to concentrate. The cold isn’t helping, either, so he turns up the collar of his jacket against the wind and puts some more effort into shielding himself. He’s so tapped out that it’s a lot fucking harder than it should be, but with effort he manages to dial down the volume of the background noise in his head low enough to ignore. He tries to focus on what he should be doing, which is keeping watch in case the government is still after them.

The thing is, at this point Kirk is fairly certain the government is no longer after them, because Kirk is also fairly certain that there is no longer a government. And, even if there is someone in charge in a bunker somewhere, he or she has bigger things to worry about right now than finding twelve seventeen year olds.

Even if those twelve seventeen year olds are responsible for ending the world. Maybe.

That’s the really scary part, because Kirk still isn’t sure exactly what they did, or how far it went. He knows what they did to London because he can see it from where he's sitting at the top of the fire escape that leads out from the upper floor of the abandoned pub where they've stopped for the night. There's a wide crack down the outside of the building, almost a foot wide in places, evidence written in concrete and brick of the damage they did when they unleashed the full force of their combined power. And this building escaped relatively lightly; there are thousands more which are now just piles of rubble, or twisted masonry hidden under the lapping waters of the vastly expanded Thames estuary. It's been over a month and the water isn't showing any signs of receding. London has been turned into an archipelago of islands, with the boroughs on higher ground cut off from each other by the flood.

He's pretty sure the rest of the country must be equally fucked, because if it wasn't, someone would have arrived by now to start cleaning things up. And the Americans and the UN are notable by their complete and utter absence, too, which might mean whatever the twelve of them did affected everyone everywhere. Kirk doesn't even want to think about that, in the same way he doesn't want to think about how it felt, when they did it: the moment of pure and perfect unity, all twelve of them thinking and feeling and acting as one. Because it hadn't felt bad or wrong. It had felt good; it had felt right. Like that was what they were supposed to be.

And together they'd wrecked the world.

Fuck, he thinks tiredly. What a fucking mess. All they'd wanted was to be left alone.

The volume of the argument playing inside Kirk's head is creeping up again, becoming too loud to ignore. He considers mentally shouting at all of them to shut up, but knows it wouldn't get him anywhere. Instead he reaches his thoughts in Karl's direction: _What's going on?_

There's a momentary delay before Karl responds, _Mark's being an arsehole._

 _Nothing new there, then_ , Kirk sends back.

He can sense the shape of Karl's amusement. Then: _It's getting a little intense. Come and talk some sense into these fuckwits._

 _It’s getting a little intense_ is Karl-speak for a full-on shouting match involving everyone at once. Kirk looks out across the city. The sun has gone down, and without the glow of streetlights it's almost completely dark. Overhead, the sky is just beginning to ripple and glow as the northern lights -- which are a lot less northern than they used to be -- begin what has become a nightly spectacle. Kirk would enjoy watching it, if didn't have to see it for what it is, proof that they even managed to mess up the fucking geomagnetic fields.

 _Yeah_ , he says, getting up. _I'm coming._

 

***

 

"We can't stop moving," Mark is saying as Kirk comes into the main bar on the ground floor of the pub. "They'll catch up with us if we do."

KK tips her head back and deliberately hits her skull against the wall. "Christ on a bloody fucking crutch, Mark, would you give it a rest?" She takes a drink from the bottle she's holding; there are a couple of empties sitting at her feet. This is why it was a bad idea to stop for the night in a pub, Kirk thinks. They've got enough to deal with without throwing alcohol into the mix.

On the other hand, he understands the appeal of getting totally shitfaced. At least it would let him forget, even briefly, what they did.

Sober, it's impossible to ignore, because the reminders are everywhere. The interior of the pub is a mess, with broken furniture and shards of glass on the floor and a thick layer of plaster dust from the ceiling coating every surface. There's a gloom about the place which can't be dispelled by the dozens of candles Sirrka has artfully arranged on the tables -- it's the pervasive wretchedness of abandonment and decay. And everywhere they've seen is like this. This is the world they made, Kirk thinks. This is the world they have to live in now.

He looks around the room until he sees Karl sitting on a high stool at the bar. The barstool next to him is empty, and Kirk takes it. The long mirror behind the bar is cracked into a spider's web of thin shards, multiplying their twelve reflections into hundreds -- a legion of pale, violet-eyed freaks.

"They sent the army after us," Mark says. "The fucking army. Do you think they're going to give up now?" He doesn't say, _After what we did_ , but the thought hovers in their shared mental space. It could be anyone's.

"Actually?" Kirk says, "That's exactly what I think."

Luke sneers, "Well, if Kirk thinks it, it must be right."

"Yeah, and how many times have you volunteered to be lookout?" Kirk shoots back. "How much time have you spent watching what’s going on out there? Because I’ve spent a shitload, and all I've seen for weeks is people getting out of London. Most of them are gone now. The only ones left are the ones who can't or won't leave. I haven't seen a uniform once. There's no government. No police, no army. No one's coming for us."

"This is what I've been saying," Karl says. "We've got no reason to keep running, but we're still doing it, because it's easier than sitting down and figuring out what to do. We agreed we wanted to do something big enough that they'd leave us alone. Well, it worked. We got what we wanted."

Quietly, Conor says, "None of us wanted this."

Kait picks at the label of her bottle. "And the universe replies, tough shit."

But Caz is nodding. "I'm with Karl. All we've ever done is react. When they came after us, we ran away; when they threatened us, we hit back. We need to start deciding what to do ourselves. We need to be making plans. Where are we going to be tomorrow, or next month, or next year, or in ten years? I don't want to spend the rest of my life running and hiding."

Jack, sitting next to Sirrka, looks up. "Neither do the rest of us, but I'm not hearing any good alternative suggestions, here."

"That's because we're all too tired to think," Miki says. "We can't keep going like this. We're all exhausted. We don't talk about it, but I can feel it and I know you all can too -- whatever we did when we joined together, we drained the Package doing it. It's an effort to do anything. We need to take time to recover. And there's Arkady."

At the mention of her name, Arkady -- who is lying flat on her back on top of the pub's pool table -- stirs. She sits up and rubs her eyes, like a toddler waking up from a nap. "Are we talking about me?"

Sirrka, sitting closest to her, reaches out and takes Arkady's hand in hers. "We're talking about how we want you to rest and get better."

"That's nice," Arkady says vaguely. She closes her eyes again, and Kirk can feel her mental disconnection: she’s here but not present. Arkday's mind used to be the sharpest and most focused out of all of them; now, her thoughts are scattered and fractal, like a pattern viewed through a kid’s toy kaleidoscope. It hurts to see her like this, although Kirk knows that the alternative -- if they hadn't found her in time, if Miki hadn't known what to do, if Arkday's will to live hadn't won out over her guilt at what they'd done -- would be inconceivably worse.

"Attempted suicide and madness," Luke observes. "Now there's a useful response to a crisis."

Karl snaps, "You fucking little _toad_ ," at the exact moment that Miki says, "She's ill, how _dare you_ ," and Connor -- who's normally about as physical as a dishcloth -- is actually on his feet and going towards Luke, as if to confront him.

Kirk is thinking that this is about as low a point as they've ever hit when the building collapses.

It happens almost in slow motion. First he hears a deep groan, emanating from the very fabric of the structure. Then a gentle snowfall of plaster from the ceiling floats down, leaving a fresh rime of white on the already filthy surface of the bar.

The growing roar of disintegrating masonry drowns out his voice when he tries to shout a warning, so he sends a mass call instead: _Get out, get out, the building's coming down, get out_ now.

The others are already moving. KK and Caz are throwing up shields overhead, deflecting the dust and debris coming down through the plaster ceiling as the upper floor of the building collapses on itself. But Kirk can see that something is wrong. Their shields are flickering and insubstantial, not nearly as strong as they should be. As he watches, Kirk sees a lump of brickwork go through KK's shield, forcing her to jump to one side to avoid being hit by it.

Miki was right: whatever store of energy they draw on when they use the Package, they almost drained it when they punched a hole through the world.

He runs over to KK's side and throws up a shield of his own, overlapping with hers. A few seconds later, a fourth shield shimmers into existence, and Kirk doesn't need to look around to know Karl is the one making it.

 _Make a tunnel to the door_ , he sends. _Everyone -- this way._

They don't need to be told twice. The building is coming down around them, the noise a tidal wave of destruction converging from all directions at once. The ceiling behind the bar collapses in a cloud of choking dust, followed immediately by the splintered remains of several chairs which, until a few seconds ago, were in the room above.

"It's fucking raining furniture!" Luke yells, diving out of the way.

The mirror behind the bar concertinas as the wall behind it folds under the pressure from above, and then it explodes outwards, sending shards of glass flying horizontally towards them like lethal darts.

 _I've got it_ , Karl says, and changes the angle of his shield to protect them. His mouth is a thin line, lips pressed together hard, sweat beading on his forehead as he works hard to maintain the shield's strength.

Mark, Kait and Miki have made it outside. Jack and Sirrka are coming behind, pulling Arkady along between them. She looks puzzled but not frightened, even giving a cheerful little wave to Connor as he signals frantically to them from the doorway. Luke is nowhere to be seen, but since he has the best developed sense of self-preservation out of all of them, Kirk's less inclined to worry about him.

 _You go next_ , Kirk sends to KK and Caz. _Karl and I will hold it until you get out._

 _No way_ , KK sends back. _You won't be able to._

Their shields are the only thing stopping the ceiling caving in and bringing the entire building above down on top of them. In his head, through the shield, Kirk can feel its weight bearing down, ready to crush them the instant they stop pushing back. And at the same time he can feel Karl's solid, steady presence in his head.

 _We’ll be fine_ , Karl says. _Go._

KK and Caz start to edge past them. They hold their shields as long as they can, but have to let them drop when they reach the door. Now it's just Kirk and Karl sheltering underneath a shrinking umbrella of crackling purple light.

They won't make it out, Kirk realizes. It's taking all of their combined concentration and energy to maintain the twin shields. The instant either one of them tries to do anything else -- like get to the door -- the momentary loss of focus will make one of the shields collapse, and either one them alone won’t be strong enough to carry the weight of the collapsing building. They'll be killed if they stay where they are, and killed as soon as they try to move.

So, basically, they're fucked.

 _We're not fucked_ , Karl's voice says in Kirk's head, and Kirk realizes he must have been thinking that louder than he meant to.

 _Then what's your brilliant plan?_ Kirk asks.

Karl's not looking at Kirk -- he's looking up at the shield, just inches above their heads, a shimmering barrier of fragile light holding back several tons of steel and concrete. _I never wanted any of you arseholes in my head_ , he says, _but I didn't get a choice about it. Do you ever wonder what it's like not to have to share your brain with eleven other people? I bet it's quiet, at least._

 _What the fuck are you talking about?_ Kirk's knees start to buckle. His chest aches and his head feels like it's about to split open. How much longer can they keep this up? _If you make a run for it --_

Karl interrupts him: _Would you shut up and listen? I'm telling you this isn't easy for me the way it's easy for the others. I couldn't have done it before we all joined together. But I think I can do it now. I can do it if it's you. So -- let me._

 _Let you what--?_ Kirk starts to ask. And then he stops, because he knows.

He feels something like a door opening in his mind, energy flowing through to fill him up. The last time Kirk experienced this depth of connection, all twelve of them were united by their rage, and their fury was a destructive force which was more than they were able to control. This time, it's just him and Karl, and it's different. It's vast and limitless and there's no anger in it at all. His chest relaxes and the pain in his head disappears, and suddenly the weight pressing down above them becomes feather-light, the burden easy to bear. He looks up and sees their two shields coalescing into one, a bright dome of solid light.

And then the dome rises rapidly, expanding upwards, effortlessly pushing aside the wreckage above them, until they are standing in the ruins of the building with nothing between them and the night sky.

 

***

 

"All I'm saying is, from now on we do proper checks for structural integrity. If tonight proved anything, it's that 'It looks okay' is not a reliable risk assessment."

"Fuck off, Luke."

No one wants to be inside a man-made structure tonight, so they've built a fire in the ruins of the pub and are gathered around it. Everyone is wrapped in blankets against the cold, but no one is complaining, and even Luke's sniping lacks any real venom.

"He's got a point," Caz says. "We can't rely on anything. Everything's in ruins. We broke everything."

Kirk pokes the fire, and then wraps a cloth around his knuckles so he can lift the kettle off it without burning his hands. He pours nearly-boiling water into a miraculously unbroken cup they found in the rubble and adds a tea bag from their meager stash, swirling the cup around for lack of a spoon to stir it. "No. Everything's not broken." He says it with a certainty he didn't feel before.

KK looks at him. "Did something hit you on the head in there? Because you're not usually Mr Positive."

Kirk glances over to where Karl is asleep, huddled under a pile of blankets. He'd more or less fallen over from exhaustion as soon as they were safe, and Kirk hasn't had a chance to talk to him alone. Out of all of them, Kirk's always been closest to Karl, but now he feels he knows Karl in a way he didn't before -- he knows exactly how much Karl needs to maintain some semblance of privacy inside his head, just to keep himself sane, and he knows what it cost him to open himself up the way he had. And Kirk knows, too, that the only reason Karl had been able to do it was because it had been for him.

It's a lot to take in. He's not sure how much of it he wants to share with the others. He's even less sure how much Karl would be okay with him telling them.

Finally he says, "We can do things together we can't do separately."

"Yes, like end the world," Kait says.

"We did that when we were angry," he says. "Maybe anger's not the only thing we can use to amplify the power. Maybe it's just – the easiest thing to reach for. And the most destructive."

KK tips her head to one side, and looks at him. "How exactly did you and Karl pull off that trick of joining your shields together?"

Kirk shrugs, not wanting to answer that. He's saved by Connor. "That's our problem, isn't it? We don't even know what we can do."

"Then we should spend some time finding out," Miki says. "Just -- stop. Stop for as long as it takes."

"It's too dangerous to stay in one place," Mark says, but with the half-hearted attitude of someone who knows he's lost the argument.

"It's no more dangerous than not understanding the Package," Sirrka points out. "We caused all of this because we didn't know how powerful we were. A building fell on us tonight while we were fighting with each other. Are we sure we didn't bring it down on top of ourselves?"

The silence that follows seems like as good a confirmation as any that they're not sure.

"All right," Kirk says at last, "then we're decided. Tomorrow we start looking for a place to set up shop for a bit."

"Whitechapel," Arkady says brightly, speaking for the first time in hours. "We go to Whitechapel."

Kirk looks at her, surprised. It's the first time in weeks that Arkady's shown any real signs of knowing what's going on around her. Connor is smiling openly, and Caz reaches out to give her a quick hug. "Welcome back, 'Kady. And thank you for the suggestion."

Arkady looks mystified. "It's not a suggestion. That's where we go."

 

***

 

When the fire starts to die down, Kait volunteers to sit up and keep watch while the others sleep, and for once Kirk decides to let someone else be their lookout. He's tired and, besides, a fucking pub fell on him tonight. There should be a rule, he thinks: any night a building falls on you is a night you can take off.

Cardboard isn’t the most comfortable bedding, but it’s better than sleeping on the ground. Kirk builds himself a makeshift mattress next to where Karl is sleeping. He wraps himself up in grimy blankets and curls on to his side, so that his back is to the fire and his nose is only inches from the nape of Karl’s neck. He can feel the warmth of the fire licking at his back, and at least he knows that if it rains Kait will throw up a shield to keep them dry.

One by one, the others fall asleep. He can feel their thoughts drifting free of the anchor of consciousness, so that he is surrounded by the distant dreams of eleven other people.

Well. Ten other people.

 _Thought you were asleep_ , he sends to Karl.

 _I was until some bugger lay down next to me and started breathing down my neck_ , Karl complains.

Kirk stifles a laugh. He rolls on to his back. _Better?_

There’s a moment’s hesitation, and then Karl says, _I wasn’t really complaining._

 _Do you think the Package is only good for destroying things?_ Kirk asks him. _Can we do good stuff?_

Karl doesn’t answer for a long time – so long that Kirk wonders if he’s gone back to sleep. But the shapes of his thoughts are still sharp and clear, although he’s hiding their substance behind mental screens. Kirk knows better than to push through them; more than the rest of them, Karl needs to work things through for himself before he shares with anyone else.

At last Karl answers, _With you, I feel like I could do good things._ Then he adds, _Now fucking shut up and let me sleep._

Kirk takes the hint. After a while, Karl’s conscious thoughts dissolve into the fuzzy collective dreamscape of the others, and Kirk is the last one of them awake.

Lying on his back, Kirk can look up at the waves of green light washing across the night sky overhead. Caz – who paid more attention in science class than the rest of them – has a theory that whatever they did disrupted the Earth’s magnetic field, which is why the aurora borealis is visible over the south of England. Until now, Kirk has only been able to see the abrupt southwards migration of the Northern Lights as more evidence of how badly they fucked up, but tonight, for the first time, he finds himself appreciating the spectacle for what it is, something beautiful in an otherwise mostly messed up world.

He turns on to his side and eases a little closer to Karl. Then he lets himself slide into the dreams of eleven other people, and falls asleep.


End file.
